REGION: District attorney rebuked by state commission

Riverside County District Attorney Paul Zellerbach was publicly
admonished this week by the California Commission on Judicial
Performance for what it described as multiple ethics violations
committed while he was a Superior Court judge.

In an eight-page decision, the commission cited instances in
which Zellerbach made "disparaging" comments about the district
attorney's office during a hearing and instances of improper
fundraising practices related to his campaign for district
attorney.

Zellerbach said in an interview that he "strongly disagrees with
the (commission's) findings and conclusions," which he insisted
were the result of "politically motivated" complaints by his
predecessor, former District Attorney Rod Pacheco.

According to the commission, Zellerbach, who served on the bench
from 2000 until the end of 2010, violated provisions of around a
half-dozen canons in the California Code of Judicial Ethics.

The first transgression occurred in March 2009, during a hearing
in an embezzlement case. According to the report, Zellerbach made
comments about the district attorney's office, then headed by
Pacheco, that were "disparaging, undignified and discourteous."

The hearing was on a discovery motion by attorneys for Holly Ann
Gunnette, who was charged with financial elder abuse and other
allegations arising from her handling of retirement accounts for
two clients in their 90s.

The Jurupa Valley woman's attorneys were seeking documents
connected with her work as Pacheco's treasurer years earlier, while
he was still serving in the state Assembly.

Zellerbach questioned prosecutors' response to the discovery
request, prompting Deputy District Attorney Mike Silverman to
reply, "What you may want to have done as a prosecutor isn't what
is necessarily required of me," according to the commission
report.

"Judge Zellerbach responded, 'I know. I am faced with that issue
all the time in the D.A's office, unfortunately' ... Mr. Silverman
replied, 'What do you mean by unfortunately, your honor?' Judge
Zellerbach responded: 'Not doing their job properly,"' according to
the commission narrative.

Zellerbach said this week that he realizes the comments were
"probably inappropriate for a judge to make."

"But at no time were those comments not completely truthful and
accurate," he said. "Maybe they were unjudiciallike. But if I'm
guilty of anything, I'm guilty of caring too much about the D.A.'s
office and the justice system of Riverside County."

At the same hearing, Zellerbach referred to the district
attorney's executive office as a "PR firm," leading Silverman to
reply that the district attorney did not have a public relations
firm. Zellerbach answered, "Oh yeah, you do," according to the
report.

At the time, Pacheco had come under scrutiny for having an
executive staff numbering more than a dozen people, including three
public information officers. Questions also were being raised about
his policy against plea deals for defendants accused of serious
felonies, which critics blamed for a backlog of more than 1,000
criminal cases that clogged the docket and led to a hiatus in civil
trials.

The commission also found Zellerbach erred during the Gunnette
hearing by not disclosing his desire to run against Pacheco in the
June 2010 election, which might have been grounds for the judge's
disqualification from the case, taking into account the prior
relationship between Pacheco and Gunnette.